Philosophize This! – Episode #181 … What if consciousness is an illusion?

Intro

In this episode of “Philosophize This!”, the host celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the show and expresses gratitude to the listeners for their support. The host also acknowledges poor planning in estimating podcast episode lengths and announces plans to release more episodes. The episode dives into the concept of consciousness and explores the question of whether consciousness is an illusion.

Main Takeaways

The Nature of Consciousness

• The concept of consciousness is divided into two types: access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness.
• Access consciousness can be explained with neuroscience, while phenomenal consciousness is the subjective experience that underlies conscious thought.
• A materialist questions whether phenomenal consciousness needs further explanation and asks what the difference is between explaining the component parts of our subjective experience and explaining phenomenal consciousness.
• Phenomenal consciousness may not need further explanation and could be a sort of attribution we make about a particular intersection of component parts that we can study and explain.

The Influence of Metaphors

• Metaphors we use in everyday conversation about consciousness can shape the way we see our conscious experience.
• The Cartesian theater metaphor, where the mind is separate from the body and we are perched inside our heads watching a movie of the outside world, has influenced the way people view their subjective experience.
• The metaphors we use can smuggle assumptions about our subjective experience that we have no evidence to assume.
• Susan Blackmore believes there are several other examples of metaphors that fall into the same category as the Cartesian theater.

The Illusion of Consciousness

• Our experience of consciousness as a unified stream may be an illusion caused by the way we observe our own consciousness.
• Different parts of the brain work together to create the illusion of continuity in our memories, visual experience, and emotions.
• Traditional metaphors of consciousness, such as the Cartesian theater, can lead to an illusion about the nature of consciousness.
• Narrow science and disciplined introspection both suggest that consciousness is an attribution we make, not a property of only some special events or processes.

Alternative Perspectives

• The search for a specific location where consciousness is bound together holistically is misguided.
• Consciousness may not be produced in a centralized headquarters of the brain, but may be an emergent property that only exists with a specific organization of physical systems.
• Some people believe that phenomenal consciousness is an illusion created by several distributed processes of the brain running in parallel.
• Phenomenal consciousness can be thought of as a user interface or a desktop on a computer, a simplified representation of complex inner workings.

Summary

Understanding the Illusion of Consciousness

The concept of consciousness is divided into two types: access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. Access consciousness can be explained through neuroscience, while phenomenal consciousness refers to the subjective experience underlying conscious thought. However, there is a debate about whether phenomenal consciousness needs further explanation or if it is simply an attribution we make based on the intersection of component parts. The metaphors we use to describe consciousness, such as the Cartesian theater, can shape our perception of our conscious experience. These metaphors may smuggle assumptions about our subjective experience that lack evidence. It is suggested that our experience of consciousness as a unified stream may be an illusion created by the way we observe our own consciousness. Different parts of the brain work together to create the illusion of continuity in our memories, visual experience, and emotions. There is a growing perspective that consciousness is not produced in a centralized headquarters of the brain, but rather emerges from specific organizational patterns of physical systems. Some argue that phenomenal consciousness is an illusion created by distributed processes in the brain, similar to a user interface on a computer. While consciousness may be an illusion, there are also reasons to doubt this perspective, as it heavily relies on the specific definition of what an illusion is and what consciousness is.

Conclusion

The question of whether consciousness is an illusion raises intriguing philosophical debates. While there are arguments that support the idea of consciousness as an illusion, there are also counterarguments that challenge this perspective. The impact of consciousness being an illusion on everyday life and society remains debatable. This ongoing discussion mirrors other unsolved conversations in philosophy, such as the debate about free will being an illusion. The next episode will explore the implications of free will being an illusion on society and how we structure it.